Vanessa Bryant Bio| Kobe Bryant Wife, Physical Stats, Net Worth
Vanessa Marie Bryant is an American model of Mexican descent. She is the wife of late Kobe Bryant, the great NBA star. She was still a senior at her high school when Kobe, already an established star with the Los Angeles Lakers, announced their engagement. Thrust into the spotlight overnight, she would gradually develop herself to be more than a mere side-note to her husband’s nearly mythical story. As for her marriage, it over the years withstood a sexual assault charge against Kobe and a filing for divorce which was later dropped. Inevitably, she became the subject of contradictory sentiments in the public sphere right alongside her husband, admired at one instant, and disdained at the next. As active members of the community, she along with her late husband, supported several charitable causes, including their own ‘The Kobe & Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation,’ an organization dedicated to improving the lives of youth and families in need, both domestically and globally.
Vanessa Bryant Physical Stats
Vanessa Bryant age is 37 years old. She stands on a height of 5 feet 5 inches tall. She has a body measurements of 34-27-36 inches. She wears a bra size of 32DD. She wears a shoe size of 5 UK.
Vanessa Bryant Husband
Vanessa Bryant (nee Laine) is the mother of Kobe Bryant’s four daughters. The couple met in 1999 when Vanessa was working as a background model on a music video and were engaged just six months later. The couple shared four daughters, Natalia, 17, Gianna, Bianka, four, and seven-month-old baby Capri Bryant who was born on June 20, 2019. Vanessa was aged just 17 while Kobe was 21 and had already played three seasons in the NBA. At the time their relationship sparked a massive media frenzy with a television helicopter once flying over Vanessa’s high school campus to try to catch the couple together. The intense attention over their relationship forced her to miss her high school prom. They tied the knot in a romantic and low-key wedding in 2001. But Kobe’s family reportedly did not attend the marriage because his parents were worried about him marrying so young, and the couple’s decision not to get a pre-nup.
Vanessa Bryant Early Life
Bryant was born as Vanessa Cornejo Urbieta on May 5, 1982, in Huntington Beach, California to Mexican parents. She was three years old when her parents divorced and her mother, Sophia Urbieta, raised her by herself, holding two jobs at once. In 1990, Sophia married Stephen Laine, whose surname Vanessa took in 2000 despite not being officially adopted by Laine. She has an older sister named Sophie.
Facts about Vanessa Bryant
- As a teenager, Vanessa met Kobe who was pursuing a side career in music back then, while filming for a music video for the hip-hop group ‘Tha Eastsidaz’ as a backup dancer. Soon enough, he was sending roses to Marina High where she studied and picking her up after school.
- On her 18th birthday, the pair made the news of their engagement public. They married on April 18, 2001.
- Kobe’s parents, his siblings, other members of his immediate family, and even his teammates at the Lakers did not attend the ceremony.
- Later, his father and former NBA star Joe “Jellybean” Bryant would admit in an interview that they disapproved their son’s choice of a bride. Kobe later revealed that it was because she was a Latina.
- The birth of Vanessa and Kobe’s first daughter, Natalia Diamante, in January 2003, healed some of these wounds.
- Vanessa always has been a fiercely guarded individual. Initially, following Kobe’s announcement of their engagement, she was overwhelmed by the television news crews at her doorstep and the helicopters hovering over her school.
- She even quit school to avoid being swept over by the media frenzy and received her degree independently.
- These days it is a completely different story.
- She is the embodiment of a perfect sports star wife, attending games and accompanying her husband to social events.
- Vanessa gave birth to their second daughter, Giana Maria-Onore, in 2006.
- She filed for divorce on December 16, 2011, citing irreconcilable differences.
- The couple appealed for joint custody of their two daughters.
- However, on January 11, 2013, they revealed on social media, she on Instagram, he on Facebook—that they have called off the divorce proceedings. Their third daughter, Bianka Bella, was born in 2016.
Image Credit: Instagram
